


this page of strange gibberish

by constant_vellichor



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constant_vellichor/pseuds/constant_vellichor
Summary: Ficlets and longer headcanons originally posted on my Tumblr. Updates will be sporadic but eventual.





	1. Davenport Boogaloo

What Davenport hasn’t told them, but what he hopes they have deduced, the seven of them standing buffed and burnished and bright-eyed in front of the ogling press-conference crowd, is that they are expendable.

The IPRE propaganda hails them as the best and brightest, the proverbial cream of the crop, as it were. Their young, human chronicler and bodyguard, both of them fresh-faced and prodigious. Their kindly dwarven medic with an affinity for flora, and their bumbling middle-aged necromancer. The mysterious, gorgeous twins, sharp-tongued and magically gifted, who pulled themselves out of poverty and obscurity by the tips of their elven ears and the straps of their high-heeled boots. And their captain- the ace pilot, the celebrated military tactician, the IPRE commander. The one to lead their two-sunned world into the glory of the oncoming Inter-Planar Age.

This is what the propaganda says. Davenport knows better.

He knows that this is the first mission in the history of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration that will send living beings beyond the known planar system. He knows that the Starblaster is a hastily-constructed prototype, fully expected to fall apart after (or possibly during) its maiden voyage. The Light of Creation- its purpose, to the higher-ups of the Institute, is not to further magical or scientific knowledge, but to let them hang on to their comfortable jobs and comfortable respect and comfortable money, and to  _ finally get them some decent fucking publicity, Davenport, so for fuck’s sake hire some interesting ones. _

So, Davenport does.

Magnus Burnsides is put on the list because he is young, and handsome, and an excellent poster boy and teen heartthrob, and because he will not be missed much in the moderately-likely event of his death. At the tender age of nineteen he has no family left to mourn him, a freshly-minted degree from the Academy, and a folder that marks him as ‘enthusiastic, and loyal to a fault’. The Institute snaps him up, and Davenport snatches him for the mission only weeks later- as much as he hates the callous analysis of the Institute towards the worth of its members, he has to admit Magnus is admittedly perfect for the Starblaster crew. And he has to be honest- the first time he met Magnus, Davenport wanted him to keep that enthusiasm and joy for a little longer before he was inevitably ground down under the weight of bureaucracy and unending uniformity.

Lucretia is chosen because of her Fantasy Pulitzer in biography and her ambidexterity. The Fantasy Pulitzer helps draw in already-present fans and media attention, and Davenport just thought the ambidexterity was impressive. And considering the… eclectic personalities of the rest of his crew, twenty-year-old Lucretia with a quiet cleverness in her voice that Davenport respects might be easier to manage than the other pretentious writer-types he’d interviewed. And he admires her- her skill set is so very remarkable for somebody so young, and despite her quietness, she has potential to lead someday that he’d like to nurture, if she’ll let him.

Merle Highchurch showed up late for his interview unapologetically, beard covered in dirt and what Davenport could have sworn was a small pink cactus poking out of a pocket in his habit. His resume had been written in green gel pen. And despite all this, Davenport had hired him immediately, because the fucker had been the one person out of the hundreds he’d interviewed that Davenport thought he could go for a drink with,  _ and _ possibly might not even want to stab at the end of the approaching two-month mission. There was something about the irreverent cleric that made you feel  _ secure _ , and gods if that isn’t a feeling Davenport craves.

The twins had been… a godsend, if Davenport was being honest. Aside from Taako and Lup’s being almost unnaturally good candidates for tabloid bait (what cheap fantasy magazine didn’t want to tell a story about the sweet little elf boy and girl who overcame the tragic circumstances of their childhood and grew up to become glamourous, internationally famous inter-dimensional cosmonauts?), they could provide something the Starblaster needed desperately- fuel for the bond engine. It’s not like the thing could thrive off of the relationships between  _ co-workers _ . There was no situation in which both of the twins would have been chosen otherwise- skill sets too similar, independence levels too high, too likely to prioritise each other over the mission. But Davenport bribed and blackmailed and cajoled, as he’d done before and would undoubtedly do again, and Taako and Lup continued to gain notoriety, and Davenport’s superior officer thankfully reached a point close enough to retirement that he was willing to sign any document placed in front of him if it let him get back to his nap and the brandy hidden in his desk drawer, and by the time launch day rolled around the twins were strutting along the deck with the rest of the crew.

Barry was…the exception to the rule. They hadn’t wanted him on a possible suicide mission- not Professor Hallwinter, not the first man they’d called in to tell them whether the Light of Creation was actually  _ alive _ or not, not the one who’d looked upon the closest thing to the face of the gods they had upon that two-sunned planet and said  _ huh. Well, it’s not  _ not _ alive.  _ No, they’d wanted him on the third ship out, maybe the fourth, surrounded by bodyguards more experienced than a teenager with scraggly sideburns. But Barry… he’d never been much of a fighter, the pudgy human in the bluejeans, but  _ fuck _ if he hadn’t disarmed those old bastards at the Institute. Davenport had never been one for genial shuffling in badly-fitting clothes, or good-natured scientific conversation- nor was he able to hide fiery determination behind a quiet, bumbling mask. But Barry charmed his way onto that ship in ten minutes flat, once he set his mind to it, and Davenport had never been more grateful.

And Davenport?

He’s here to prove them all wrong.

All of them who said that he, a dull little gnome who came from fucking  _ nothing _ couldn’t hack it, couldn’t do anything-  _ anything _ \- he set his mind to. He’s proving that it all paid off, all the late nights studying with purloined textbooks, flying anything and everything he could get his hands on, whenever he could get his hands on it, failing the IPRE Flight Academy’s entrance exam four times before he got in. He’s going to make sure that everyone knows the captain of the Starblaster mission isn’t an IPRE higher-up, the rich son of a bureaucrat or a businessman. They’re going to know that he worked for it against a system designed to keep out all but a select few. That he fought for it all and he  _ won _ .

And, quite honestly? He’d picked his crew not for their ability to charm the press, or from desire to keep them away from IPRE headquarters, or even their various scientific skillsets (though those certainly helped). No, he’d chosen them because they were  _ underdogs _ , every one of them. They’d wrestled with the world for their entire lives to get to where they were today, clawed their way out of their respective pits and made it, and they were  _ still _ considered expendable.

Well, not on Davenport’s fucking watch.

After the press conference, after the biker bar and the purple sky leaching itself of colour and the opalescent plane descending, after their world with its two glowing suns is consumed and they make their frantic escape, after they decide to  _ survive _ , Davenport stands on the deck and looks out at the empty space between planes.

And he is glad, despite everything. Because he knows he has chosen well. And that there is no crew better equipped to endure the storm to come.


	2. Bulwark Staff

I think Magnus carved the Bulwark Staff.

I think there was a cycle where Lucretia was injured and needed a cane to walk and Magnus stayed up all night carving one out of white oak and embedding one of Lucretia’s spare arcane focuses at the tip so she could cast spells more easily. I think that once the cycle ended it stayed in a corner of her room in pride of place until the Seven Birds decided to make the relics, and then she dug it out again and poured fifteen percent of the Light of Creation into it and hid it away in some inscrutable corner of the world behind layers and layers of ninth-level abjuration spells where there was no hope of any pursuers reaching it.

I think once she’d erased her family’s memories and tucked them safe and sound into the lives she created for them she flew the Starblaster to her relic's hiding place and picked the staff right back up. I think she ran her hands over the grain of the white wood from a tree from a world they’d failed to save, carved with so much love by a person who, for all extents and purposes, doesn’t exist anymore and tried so, so hard not to cry.

And I think when Magnus stood in the throne room of the Bureau of Balance for the first time and looked at the Director and her staff both, he wondered why they both looked so familiar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a lil baby chapter but like. I hope it was decent anyway. As always, kudos, comments and bookmarks are fucking excellent. I love you all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading as always, y'all. Any and all comments, kudos and bookmarks are always welcome and also make my Whole Entire Day. Come visit me on tumblr @constant_vellichor for a healthy dose of D&D podcast content!


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